


Selfish

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-08
Updated: 2008-06-08
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: It wasn’t exactly a romance. But it was something pretty damned close.





	Selfish

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

_If you are lonely, then you will know --_

_When someone needs you, you love them so._

_\-- As Long As He Needs Me **; Oliver!**_

He was always a selfish child.

When Remus was four, Emily – a tiny, screaming ball of _sister –_ made her magical way into the world. His mother used to say to him _I need you to help me with her, Remus_ and he’d always help her because she’d say the magic word. And when Emily grew up she needed him to walk her to school and teach her how to ride a bicycle and tell her all about frogs while she lay on a day-bed and coughed feebly and slowly faded away into the summer.

After she melted, Remus left, heavy-hearted for Hogwarts, and there he found James, Sirius and Peter and there he found peace.

When they were boys together, Remus had been the ineffectual grounding force. He’d been the Devil’s advocate; the one who raised the practical issues and argued patiently with Sirius and James’ enthusiastic petulance. He was a linchpin, understanding perfectly how to make sulking Sirius smile and preparing James for his first date with Lily. They’d needed him to fill the empty space.

And on Halloween night they’d needed him more than ever. And he’d let them down.

But when Sirius appeared on his doorstep, he vowed that he wouldn’t let it happen again.

It was bad the first few months. Sirius had regular fits, and everything he ate came back up. He spent a good twenty-three hours a day as a dog and Remus’ Cleaning Charms (never particularly effective) were nowhere near strong enough to pacify the smell of canine faeces.

It soon became obvious that caring for Sirius was a full-time occupation. He quit his jobs at the library and the local pub and pawned his precious collections of war medals and his mother’s mermaid-crafted necklace to tide them over.

He’d heat milk, add sugar and serve it to Padfoot with bread. He found one of his old cloaks from school and donated it to the dog, so that he never felt alone. Most of all, he just sat patiently. Padfoot would start in a corner, whining softly, with heartbreaking tears swelling in his liquid grey eyes, and only Remus’ softest, most gentle tone could convince him to leave the corner. Sometimes even that didn’t work and he’d hide in the shadows for days at a time, in which case Remus would bring his food and water to him and sit all night in the room, whispering to him until his throat burned. 

After nearly eight weeks, the fits were less regular and Sirius started to spend some time as a man again. Remus helped him take a proper bath and cut his nails. He still ate mostly bread and milk, but Remus could get small amounts of proper food down him on good days. But he was still scared, in such an angry, hating way that it almost scared Remus. One Thursday, he found Sirius standing up against a wall, pressing a knife to his own throat and threatening an invisible crowd that _if any of you move I’ll slit his goddamn throat._ Remus hid the cutlery and kitchen knives, put Unbreakable Charms on all the glassware, threw out his razor and placed Permanent Sticking Charms on all the furniture. Sirius, sounding for a wondrous moment like his old self, sneered and said that they didn’t even do that in Azkaban.

When he told Kingsley this over a pint months later, the taller man had laughed. Remus was a fool, he said, to tell people that and still expect them to believe that they weren’t sleeping together.

But they _weren’t,_ he said in exasperation for possibly the ten-thousandth time.

They shared a bed because when Sirius woke up he needed to cling to somebody or he’d start trying to attack things. It could take up to an hour to convince Sirius that it was safe to open his eyes in the morning. Those mornings were the worst, because Sirius would ask him in choked sobs if he’d brought Dementors to wake him. He still didn’t trust him and Remus supposed that was only fair enough. But it still hurt, a physical stabbing in the chest.

They shared a bed because Sirius was so frightened of going to sleep that without Remus’ calming voice in his ear and calming hand on his back, he’d never rest. Because what haunted Sirius at night, Remus didn’t even want to try to understand.

They shared a bed because Sirius _needed_ him and sometimes that need was in food or blankets, and sometimes it was in long-missed comfort and respect, and sometimes it was in helping him hide his fits and unrest from delicate Harry who needed all the protection he could get and sometimes, when it got really bad, Sirius needed him as someone to hold him and touch him and kiss him and make him feel real again.

But how does one explain that to someone? Explain that the sighs and moans were nothing to do with sex and everything to do with being there because otherwise he’d just spiral further and further down in oblivion. That the heat and sweat late at night was nothing to do with _ardour_ and everything to do with trying to wash away the scars that Azkaban leaves, scars far deeper than anything the pathetic wolf could attempt.

It wasn’t exactly a romance. But it was something pretty damned close.

They held one another’s gaze the way drowning men cling to lifeboats. Their hands would brush and Sirius’ eyes would light up because no-one’s hands were as warm as Remus’. Sirius became excited by things like warmth and dryness; all the things he’d missed. Remus would feel Sirius gaze resting safe and heavy on his back, and he knew that this concentrated focus was the only thanks Sirius could give him and the only thanks he required.

He was always selfish, because he always needed to be someone’s everything. 

When Sirius died, Remus wasn’t sure quite what to feel. If it had been him, he knew reasonably, Sirius would probably have died too, and that, he decided, said something about Sirius. Most of all, he felt like melting away into the walls and fibres of Grimmauld Place. He felt like a painter who had completed his masterpiece. He had fulfilled his purpose. There was nothing left. Even the war, even bloody _Harry_ felt unimportant now. He had needed Sirius as much as Sirius had needed him, and he couldn’t decide if that was fair or just exploitative.

But then Nymphadora needed him. And then Teddy needed him.

And this is how Remus Lupin loves. 


End file.
